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Seven Recorded Works Eclipse LP £10.99 First volume of a two-volume set on Eclipse documenting various sonic settings featuring Californian sound artists/composers/improvisers Ilya Monosov and Preston Swirnoff. Swirnoff’s unsteady piano dominates much of Volume 1, moving from melodic gambits that have an austere, classical edge through moments of Giallo-styled suspense. The whole thing is undercut with some vaguely ominous drone as well as glimpses of hurdy gurdy, harmonica, melodica and organ. Parts of this remind me of some of Iancu Dumitrescu’s more low-level work, maybe the sense of actual identifiable sound sources being put to both tactile and cerebral use along with the backdrop of black, infinite space. Limited to only 500 copies. |
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Five Recorded Works: Volume 3 Eclipse ECLIP 052LP LP £11.99 "California sound artists Ilya Monosov and Preston Swirnoff return with two more sonic labyrinths stretched over disparate terrain. As on their previous albums, Monosov and Swirnoff cast boundaries to the wind. Disillusioned and wise to the ways of the world, the duo not only succeeds in propping up the shambolic planet they created on Recorded Works Vol. 1 & Vol. 2, but also in soaring toward the furthest reaches of distant suns. Blurring the line between composition and improvisation, these new installments are rare, unearthed gems. Volume 3 begins with dancing shadows and acoustic myopia. Monosov's minimal vocals lead Swirnoff's piano ramblings deeper into the cerebral maze, inadvertently finding the best route out. Setting off the shaky delicacy of the opener and Side A closer, 'Repeat Again' (with enchanting vocals from Naomi) are the raucous, industrial rhythms of 'Snake Lust' and 'Fly Away.' The Indian-inspired drones of 'With Charles Curtis' top the whole thing off with cinematic splendor. Monosov and Swirnoff manage to seamlessly mesh these ideas into a cohesive whole." Brad Rose. Edition of 500 copies. |
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Split LP: Volume 4 Eclipse ECLIP 053LP LP £11.99 "Where Volume 3 is steeped in elegiac drones and tones, Volume 4 turns off the main road and heads toward a fuzzed-out oblivion. This record is actually a split between the Monosov/Swirnoff duo and their band Habitat Sound System. Opener 'Needle's Eye' throws back to Side B of Volume 2 and another Monosov/Swirnoff band, The Shining Path. With spaced-out hints of Les Rallizes Denudes, this is a cosmic transport into the stratosphere. The other duo track, 'Desire Sings Just One True Song,' is the antithesis of 'Needle's Eye.' Unplugged and methodic, it unfolds like an impulsive narrative where the ending seems as unlikely as the storyline. Organic drones of hurdy gurdy, harmonic, and bowed banjo meander over streams of abstract percussion. It pours perfectly into a dub-infused rhythm that closes out the side. Habitat Sound System pick up this theme with impressive ease with four tracks straight from the Kingston underground. Smoke-filled jams sound as though they've been hibernating all winter complete with horns, synthesizers, organs, and more. In the Habitat Sound System, it never rains, only shines." Brad Rose. Edition of 500 copies. |
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Two Recorded Works Eclipse LP £10.99 Second volume of a two-volume set on Eclipse documenting various sonic settings featuring Californian sound artists/composers/improvisers Ilya Monosov and Preston Swirnoff. Side one features two minimal compositions for tape loop, bowed guitar, air organ and voice that are some of the best of the set, with a kind of helium-high Terry Riley-styled sense of dizzy euphoria building slowly across the side. Side two is credited to Monosov and Swirnoff’s rock group, The Shining Path, and is all-blaring in a fractured style that recalls Faust circa Tapes. Limited to only 500 copies. |
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Solo Cello no. 1 For Charles Curtis Eclipse ECLIP 001CD CD £10.99 "When Ilya Monosov handed me the score which he wished me to realize, I was relieved that it revealed a complete absence of composerly attributes; it struck me as an honest, an entirely sincere parallel reconfiguring in pictorial, or spatial form, of the disposition of sounds and sound states, and the feelings that inhere in sounds... in response to the photographs and their airy, sky-directed orientation, I created a group of airy, diffuse, diaphanous, unfocused cello sounds, using the extended corpus of the cello as a unified vibrational field, and expressing the point at which cello sound production breaks up into unspecific matter, or diffuses, freeing itself of singular pitch or any other characteristics lending specificity... I organized these sound states into a continuum from extremely diffuse to not so diffuse, the least diffuse being a high artificial harmonic played sul ponticello (and this the only sound actually played conventionally on a string)... we agreed the most diffuse was to be silence... therefore, including silence, I had at my disposal an incremental set or pallette of eleven sound states... applied to the score, we agreed that, read from bottom to top, the most widely spaced sky-strips, as figuratively admitting the largest volume of air, be assigned the most diffuse sounds; and the narrowest the least diffuse... durations were determined by taking a visual average of the faintness of the two wires delineating a sky strip, with the most faintly delineated strips the longest durations, the most boldly the shortest... to this end Ilya Monosov provided a scale of five durations, in seconds 20, 30, 45, 80, 100... thus with five durations and eleven sound states I identified seventy-one separate events and played them accordingly..." Charles Curtis |
